The Varangian Guard.
"We've been running for so long my friends. Centuries and centuries of running being worn down more and more every day. I say it is finally time we stop running"
-Master of Sanctity Horatius to his fellow ancients
The Lords of Byzantium, the Vangrian Guard are one of the two most diverse members of the Trust, the other being the Imperial Guard, featuring members from all Core Trust worlds and are even starting to recruit from more established colonies like Dooneva or Stratigue.
This wide base of recruitment compared to most Chapters of Astartes, with the widest recruiters tending to be wondering fleet based chapters, with such diverse worlds, combined with the millennia of experience of their founders has led to some interesting customs and training habits, though it should be noted that many of the systems are geared towards ensuring that a Marine will live long enough to have both their Progenoid glands extracted, a "quirk" that the Elders of the Guard developed over their thousand year journey, but a necessary one.
The first is that a surprisingly small amount of training occurs upon Byzantium itself. All aspirants are of course taken to Byzantium for implantation, however by the time the Ossmodula and Biscopea have been implanted the Aspirants have already been taken to Jotunhiem to take advantage of the high gravity conditions to encourage the maximum muscle growth within the aspirants. *
The rest of the time training is spent split between all the core Trust worlds. On Vanaheim the aspirants learn void and ship based combat, boarding, defending and capturing vessels. On Midgard, the Aspirants are taught the intricacies of Hive based combat as well as how to operate seamlessly as part of a massive army. Svartalfhiem teaches them self-dependence with artisan lessons showing them how to survive with few or no supplies and introducing them to power armour. Nifleheim and Muspelheim teaches them to survive the extremes of temperature, the secrets of history and intrigue. Asgard teaches them honour and nobility. Even the peaceful Alfheim has its own important lesson to teach one that only Saint Lin knows of outside of the Vangrian Guard. **
In fact, it may surprise somehow late in their training the initiates are finally introduced to Avernus, but this is for a reason. The elders of the guard soon learned to give Avernus the respect it was due and the planet is now seen as a test. If an aspirant can survive in the eternal war*** of Avernus then they are fit to be promoted elsewhere, for Avernus teaches the Aspirants what no other world can,
war. Unending, never ceasing war, the feeling of being constantly attacked, of learning to rely on their brothers as extensions of themselves and to also learn how to survive on their own. It is there on the Hellworld that all the skills they have been taught are tested and many are found unworthy.
This training serves an additional purpose to instil a greater sense of loyalty into the Aspirants, breaking down the preconceptions and biases that reside within the aspirants from across the Trust. The Vanir are shown the honour of the Asgard and lose their hatred, the Avernites see the worth of the Alfar and abandon their pride and over time they come to appreciate and in a way, love each world of the Trust in all of their unique strata and contours while being separate enough to see the issues with each. In addition, they interact with the people of the Trust, to head off the pride and aloofness that can so often inflict Marines, to belief that they are superior, though often fighting alongside the Avernite Helguard cures them of that.
After their initial training has been completed to the satisfaction of Lupus Chiron****, the Guard's Master of Scouts and member of the 15, the Aspirants are placed into Scout companies that act as support for the fully inducted companies of Astartes and the Imperial Guard, putting to use their training under the best of the best to scout out targets and sabotage defences, a trial by fire that none the less produces excellent results. That is not to say that their more peaceful training is finished, on the contrary it increases, with more intensive "learning experiences" across the Trust and even more "excursions" to Avernus. That is not to say that the scouts are placed too much in the line of fire, that does not come until later in their training.
Now after a minimum of fifty years***** the Scouts will have proven worthy of training for more specialised rolls, squads of five being separated from their fellows and trained in various rolls by senior marines, during this period they are known as Dicens. The roles they are trained for are Tactical, Devastator, Assault, Pilot and Shadow.
The Tactical marine is the bread and butter of the Astartes, in squads of ten these soldiers have unprecedented tactical flexibility their improved elite armour allowing them to dodge almost all blows and shrug off those that hit. Usually taking the Jetpack and Camouflage packs for maximum flexibility and equipped with high powered master crafted Neutron Rifles and plasma foils there are few foes they cannot engage especially since at least half of the squad uses a combi neutron gun, with either a plasma flamer, a plasma gun, a melta or grav gun as under slung weapons.
The Devastator Marines have found their role changed. They were astartes using heavy weaponry, which was needed, but limited their abilities as the weight of the weapons limited they're speed and reaction times especially in melee. Constantinople however has the resources to equip them with Destroyer elite armour allowing them both incredible strength in melee and the ability to use terrifyingly powerful heavy weapons without sacrificing their defence in close quarters nay increasing it. Now they are able to act as both heavy support raining pin point fire down upon the foes, and living battering rams taking fire and clearing choke points with their incredible strong armoured bulk.
The Assault squad also takes complete advantage of their new armour, the speeds they are capable of reaching is phenomenal, breaking the sound barrier with their fury, the impact of their landing sending shockwaves that can disorient all that come too near. The advantage of their plasma foil blades, the fine control granted by their training and the enhanced strength and speed of their armour combine to turn an Assault squad into a blur of motion and death that most human foes can barely follow and allows them to outclass almost all Ork Nobz. However, what is most interesting in many ways is that they're alpha strike capability has been improved beyond measure thanks to the use of the Micro missiles, their initial appearance often being enough to devastate most formations, with them being able to switch between bombarding columns of infantry with plasma missiles to devastating the joints of Gargants before they speed off to another front of the battle to smash into their foes.
The new Pilot class may seem odd and indeed it is the smallest class, but one that is becoming surprisingly relevant due to the Guard's access to high quality vehicles that are not just transport and support vehicles. With their armour and MIU's the Pilots have almost complete control over their vehicles able to dance circles around almost all attacks to deliver their load of Astartes be it in orbit, or on the ground. It is rumoured however that Chapter Master Julius is experimenting with a new formation of Pilots that is more similar to a traditional armour formation not seen since the Grand Crusade using Fellblades and other main battle tanks with Astartes pilots, a force that could drive a wedge into almost any foe.
The Shadow class is probably the strangest and most non traditional formation however. Not because astartes cannot do stealth, but because it was usually left to the Scouts or to the Raven Guard as the armour of the astartes and size of astartes is not best suited to it. However, the recon armour, combined with the ability of all other sets of armour to stealth meant that the Shadow's abilities were in much higher demand. Ironically it is usually recon armour that is the first set of armour for a Scout rather than the Elite Armour, though Scouts are merely lesser forms of Shadow. Their duties include gathering information for incredibly well fortified and dangerous areas, assassinating key commanders and personnel, sabotaging enemy lines and setting locator and teleportation beacons to send down more heavily armoured strike teams, activities which have saved hundreds of millions if not billions of lives.
All marines are also talented in many other subsidiary fields thanks to the educational chairs, allowing them to maintain their own armour and weapons, use all vehicles to at least a basic level and provide a very high level of first aid******. However, the Guard also has a surprisingly large number of specialist marines, apothecaries, tech marines, librarians and chaplains.
These numbers are unsurprising, the veterans have had long experience with what lack of these crucial astartes will do to a chapter. While the number of Chaplains is understandably high, most likely due to a desire to emulate the famous Chaplin Horatius, the numbers of very powerful Librarians drawn from Avernus and Midgard is incredible. On average, there are ten psycic aspirants per one hundred aspirants and while it is not guaranteed that all will pass, in a company there is often anywhere between 5-8 Librarians in a company, sometimes even more who will use their skills both on the battle field and in a support role coordinating between Imperial Guard battle groups hundreds of light years away.
Once they have spent several years and have been recommended by the Sargent and Captain of the company they are serving in the astartes will be brought back to Byzantium for their final initiation. En route the ship will simulate a break down and the astartes on board and a handful of Serfs will be pitted in utter blackness against a seemingly unending hoard of foes, attacked from all sides and constantly tempted to abandon each other. While this is a simulation it is incredibly realistic thanks to the hololithic technology supplied by the Cult of Sollex and the Artisans of Svartalheim it is just that a simulation and if they remain true to their brothers and the Serfs even as they fall lashing out until their dying breath they will pass and become initiated as true members of the Vangrian Guard.
When enough members of their "one hundred" ***** have passed they will be organised into a company, the Captain will be selected from their number, all members having been screened for potential leadership and the final seal of their brotherhood will be granted. These take the form of a special banner that the company will weave together and the commissioning of a relic each from the Forges of Svartalfhiem, a task to which the Artisans will always be happy to comply for.
This brutal and accelerated training has proven to be successful, though it was only successful thanks to the high quality of the aspirants, the incredible teaching skills of the 15 and the quality of the training areas and the technology of the trust that it has been so, with there being several close calls due to missteps in the initial training process, but it is hoped that when the Guard slows its brutal pace the average skill of Guard, which is already incredibly high for such a newly established chapter, will increase.
The results of this training however are a surprisingly, considering the number of Avernites, diverse, but united whole.
In temperament, they are generally considered to be humble wanting to live up to the grand deeds of their legendary founders, but possessed of a great expectation for the future and a love of both humanity and life in general. They are also noted to be incredibly relaxed by astartes standards...on average at least.
Not all their time is spent training, many of them when they are on leave find time "relaxing" which is in fact encouraged. For some this takes the form of hobbies, with artworks, authorship, brewing******** being popular, but surprisingly cooking being incredibly popular among many Guard Members with there being a developing tradition of prospective cooks competing to create the best dishes possible for the chapter.
Others find their relaxation in administrative tasks, or training the PDF and Serfs. Several have even found employment as teachers in schools teaching the youngsters of Byzantium. All this was the scheme of Master of Sanctity Horatius, who had seen far too many Marine's especially young marines wills broken by war, chaos or simply time. "We are not simply weapons. We are human no matter what we become."
In emulation of Chaplin Horatius duelling has also become a very popular pass time within the chapter though as of yet none have been able to reach the skills required to do more than scratch Master of Sanctity Horatius, though Sar the Jotun Astartes has been able to nearly defeat Spurius Lartius, Horatius's second.
The time they spend decompressing from combat is, however rather short compared to the amount of time they spend either with the Imperial Guard, training in the rest of the Trust or on the search for more initiates.
The vast majority of the Guard are seconded to the Trust either as fully developed companies, Scout companies or building companies and they assist the Guard in much the way one would expect, inspiring the guard, or performing operations so difficult that even Avernites would take horrific casualties attempting them.
*The high food that is usually fed to initiates that is intended to be incredibly high in protein and filled with metals to strengthen their bones and increase their muscle mass has been improved thanks to Dark Age food STCs and the Nogs. The improvements not only increase the amount of other vital substances as well as protein, but also allows for larger amounts of stronger metals to be placed within the food. This is one of the reasons the Guard are noticeably stronger and larger than the recorded Imperial average.
**The lesson of Alfheim is rumoured to be one that many aspirants do not learn initially and it was created that way intentionally by Chaplin Horatius and Saint Lin.
***Several traditions have sprung up from the first 100 to venture to Avernus during the final Waaargh of Garkill. These include the obvious trophy taking, but also the most creative way to kill orks competition, with some of the more memorable ones being to unleash a a Thunderhead herd upon a moving hoard.
****One of the 15 thousand-year Ancients, Lupus Chiron is master of Scouts. A vicious biting fellow he cares and drills every initiate he can personally to give them the best chance of survival.
*****In the Guard's earlier history the number of years was a more flexible which lead to some tragic deaths as Scouts were sent into too intensive combat before they were ready.
******The Guard has started training initiates in groups of one hundred to foster stronger bonds of brotherhood and to make the task logistically easier while still retaining quality of education.
*******A rumour that is almost certainly true is that Chapter Master Julius intends to consult a legendary Psyker Hunter on Avernus for assistance in writing a new part of the Codex Astartes specifically handling Psyker Hunting for astartes. Whether there is actually a legendary psyker hunter has not been confirmed or denied by Avernus.
********Bacchus Liber, Ex Devastator Ancient Sargent and current Captain of the 5
th company, has gained significant renown in the Trust for creating some of the best alcohol in it cultivating beverage producing plants from across the galaxy picked up during the travels of the Ultramarines. In this case the across the galaxy comment is not hyperbole as Bacchus was able to retain a strain of Macragge mountain grapes that he kept fertile enough to plant for over 1000 years. His planting of the grapes on Byzantium was understandably highly symbolic for the 15 Ancients.
And done.
@Durin
Anything I can fix to make it canon?
Anyone else any comments suggestions, though be advised I'm not feeling the best and am going to bed soon so I might just be able to get back in the morning.
